journalist john archibald looks at the role of white preachers in the south during the civil rights movement. and then former democratic senator carl levin of michigan reflects on his 36-year career in the u.s. senate. also this evening former white house press secretary and fox news host dana perino discusses her career and offers life lessons s. and science writer harriet washington talks about the history of the use and his use of of science and medicine in the united states. that all starts now. for more schedule information, visit booktv.org or consult your program guide. and now here's john archibald on southern preachers in the civil rights era. >> john archibald is a pulitzer prize-winning journalist and columnist for the birmingham news. his column focuses on alabama and birmingham politics. he's written for the free register, among others. when he received the prettier prize for commentary in 2018, his work was described as

creative commentary that is rooted in alabama but has a national resonance. he'll be in conversation tonight with comedian roy wood jr. who is a correspondent on the daily show with trevor noah and he is originally from alabama. tonight the two will be discussing john's debut book, "shaking the gates of hell," which reckons with his family history as the son of a methodist preacher in alabama during the heart of the civil rights movement. the book was featured yesterday on "the new york times" new and noteworthy list, and the new york journal of books describes it as an affecting blend of memoir and history, offering an unflinching account of a family in -- [inaudible] we're so pleased to have them both here with us tonight, and now without further ado, i'll turn it over to you, john and

roy. >> okay. now i can talk. now we can talk, john. first and foremost, i guess this is always the boilerplate question in these types of conversations, where are you and how are you handling the pandemic? >> oh, man, i'm actually in cambridge, mass, about a quarter mile from the harvard bookstore. and crazily, it's 46 degrees today which is the equivalent of about 82 in alabama, i think. >> oh, yeah. >> so it's a beautiful day. >> yeah. i'm in manhattan, and they opened the swimming pools. it got to 60 yesterday. >> oh, man. >> well, thank you so much. first and foremost, as a black person, i want to thank you for writing this book. because -- and i know there's a lot of different prisms that we can explore, but the reason why i feel like this book is important is that within the black community the conversation, there's always a conversation about what other

people could be doing if they claim to be an ally. if you claim to care about black issues, if you claim to think that racism is bad, you know, there are a lot of us who do what we can, and there are a lot of people who are allies of the black community who are doing what they can, but it doesn't always come from a place of having -- it's not always from the most informed place. so the thing that we've always said, i've always said of my family and has always been said in my circle of friends is that, you know, stopping any form of oppression and bigotry starts with your circle. it starts with you first, and then it starts with the people immediately in your circle. those recent phone calls in in your phone? if it starts with those people. and then you can get out and talking about voting and did you donate to the thing and did you go march for the thing. like, those things are all beneficial and helpful. we talk about really questioning why we believe the things we

believe and challenging people on that, i think that this book is, you know, it's a beautiful introspection into someone who's not black taking the journey into themselves, and then through that journey it's impossible to learn yourself without reassessing the people around you. and i would assume that's what happened, you know, as you kind of took stock of the relationship between you and your father. but i want to start with a question, i guess a real base question because we're both, you know, sons of the south. when were you first cognizant of racism? as a, not necessarily the first time you saw racism, but the first time you saw, wow, those people are getting treated a little differently from me. >> you know, i think -- and it took me a long time to figure this out, it took me until i was writing the book to figure this out because, you know, and the reason i really wanted to write this book is because when i

found out -- i expected, and i think a lot of white people do, they look at their families, and they love them. their families love them back and they think, oh, this could never be us. i mean, we cannot be the ones who are responsible for things that took place in the '60s or, let's face it, 400 years ago or any of that. we don't want to do that. and that was reinforcing me because my dad was really emphatic that i would go to integrated schools as soon as they were available in decatur, alabama, which is when i was in second grade when they were desegregated. so i grew up in a situation where i was always around black and white people. which is what, you know, counted as diversity in alabama in 1972. and so i think the first time is when i was in cub scouts which -- and, frankly, my dad helped integrate the cub scouts

in decatur, alabama, and we had a cub scout leader who taught us about marcus garvey and things like that which was rare at the time. >> still rare. >> it is still rare. [laughter] rare then, still rare now. >> but honestly, the first time i remember being completely shocked was when i, you know, this guy played football with me at banks high school in birmingham, alabama, not far from where you went to grammar school. and we were just hanging out. he was a friend of mine, a black friend of mine, and i went, and we just drove over to my girlfriend's house at the time. and, you know, went up and knocked on the door, and the girlfriend's father wouldn't let us in because there was a black dude on his front stairs, steps. and he went nuts. and i'd never seen anything like it in my life. i'd never experienced anything like it in my life.

and i was shocked. and it stuck with me forever. and, you know, and that, that would have never happened in my household which is why i was so disappointed -- and the book is essentially about trying to find out what my father said from the pulpit. because i was able to find every sermon he'd ever given during the civil rights movement beginning, you know, beginning before i was born in april of 1963 which is that moment in time dr. king wrote the letter from the birmingham jail excoriating the white church for its silence on the issue of race in addition to dutifully -- beautifully laying out reasons for protest and demonstration. but so the person i knew at home did not match, as it turned out, the person who was always talking in that, in those sermons. because there was a real silence there on the days of great

importance whether that be the children's crusade in birmingham or the selma, montgomery march or the '63 church bombing, these critical moments in history. and he was talking about problems in asia and africa and not outside the stained glass doors of his church which was 23 miles from the jail where dr. king was held. so i wanted to know how could this person i thought was better than that -- and i still do -- how could that happen. and then was it a conspiracy of silence, and you know what that is like, you know? people who don't stand the up and say what needs to be said. >> well, you know, there's the courage to step the up and say what's right rarely without consequence. so, you know, we live in a time, and i would say, you know, these times now are very similar to -- the penalties are very similar, rather.

the penalty for speaking out on something that's wrong could come at personal loss. it could come at threats, it could come at -- you know, it could come under the guise of a lot of different forms. but we talk about white silence and this idea that there are good people who say nothing. and answering the question of are they still good people, your father -- when you first found these sermons, because i guess what was your relationship with your father? your father seemed like a great person, seemed like he did everything the right way. what was hit it about this finding the sermons that just kind of took you aback? because i assume that that was the moment where, that was the genesis point of you going, okay, this exploration needs to be put into a book. >> yep. well, i mean, it was very clear

to me when i look, when my dad was the preacher of the church right outside birmingham, alabama, in april of 1963 when i was born, when dr. king was in jail, when thousands of children were being arrested in the streets, thousands of black children were being arrested in the streets for marching for civil rights and for equality in birmingham, alabama, and i saw that my dad preached that week on what was on the church calendar children's sunday. it was children's sunday. so he would preach about children. at this moment in time in what we now call the children's crusade, and the only mention of children was innocuous and vague and not at all about the things

that were going down in birmingham, alabama. and that struck me as, i mean, how can you look beyond that and not make mention of it in a day when you're talking about children? and what we still consider to be the cradle of the civil rights movement at this incredibly important time in history. and so that began, and what you said about consequences, that's true. every preacher of this generation i asked about it said, well, you know, the consequences were great if you preached about integration. in that particular time, you'd be looking for another church next week. you'd be shipped out to -- >> [inaudible] >> in the methodist church it works a little differently, but you would be regulated to a small church, and there was great fear. and that happened to a lot of people. and they told me this as if that

was supposed to make me feel better, but all it did was make me feel as if i were a part of the reason for the silence which i know that it was not, that was not what he believed. but it was what he felt he could say. and that's a problem. a much greater problem than my father. it's the problem within the church and with the institution and with the white community. and, you know, it was beyond the church. people were punished all the time, but the question becomes, you know, and and i asked the question as you did, you know, can you be a good person and not use your pulpit, whatever that pulpit is, for real change. and it's tough, it's a tough question because goodness comes in a lot of ways, but you can certainly not be as good as you could be.

>> there's an analogy that i like more. it's not a spot on analogy, but it's something that makes sense to me. i didn't know this until the floods in houston a couple years ago. i don't remember the name of the hurricane, but the gulf gets one every 2-3 years, so whatever hurricane that was, they had video on cnn, and it was a column of fire ants floating in one big ball just in the flood waters. their colony had been flooded, and these apt -- ants have all interlocked,and essentially what they do to survive in a flood, they rotate from the top back to the bottom. some drown but most make it through, and it keeps the ball a afloat, but everybody takes a turn being on the bottom. and there's, there's a degree of selflessness within this species

of insect that these insects on the bottom willing to die if need be to make sure that there is something good that will still happen going forward whereas i feel like as humans we are not like fire ants in any capacity, shape, form whatsoever. i truly believe this, that, you know, there are -- to be human and to be moral is to act against the instinct of self-preservation. because in a lot of instances, to be moral also means that you are putting yourself at risk and you are doing something that could, if -- [inaudible] for your father, the church pays him a salary, i don't want to go

to boone, north carolina, or wrightsville beach or some other small town, no disrespect to anybody from north carolina. wrightsville beach is a wonderful place. that, does that not help, does knowing that truth about us as humans, does that help at all in any capacity to put you at some level maybe a little bit of understanding of why those choices were made? >> no. hell no. because, i mean, that's the reason that was given to me by everybody as an explanation to make me feel better, and it did not make me feel better because all i are can think of is you're telling me that you're in a position of authority, you've sworn to -- you've taken, you know, this calling from god, and it's too much of a threat that you will not be able to move to a larger church or that you will be moved to a smaller church

while, you know, john lewis was out there getting beaten in the head, where people are getting killed all over the place, where people are making great sacrifices to change the world and largely, by and large -- i mean, if you look at the original, you know, selma, there were very few white people participating. there were some. there were very few. there were very few people in birmingham marched, white people marching, bearing any risk at all. and it was a huge conspiracy, and people were afraid -- that sounds like a conspiracy theory. it's not. i mean, we'll call it peer pressure. if you don't like the word conspiracy, which is a lot like ants which i would, i would say you're wrong, they're not entirely like -- humans are not entirely like ants because they certainly do bite, i guess. you know? and they interfere with your picnic. but i think that in the face of

people who made real sacrifice, real -- i mean, dr. king is dead, you know? so many are. and for people to, it's not about sacrifice, it's about i'm making this choice for convenience. you make this for convenience and to live a more comfortable life. and that is, i think that's against what most of these people were preaching in a more vague sense. and the more vague sense that you love everybody, autolittle children, red and yellow, black and white, jesus loves the little children, but they gotta go over there, and we gotta go over here. and it's in congress and none of it makes any sense if you justify silence in that regard. >> for the people who don't know, is your father still with

us? >> no, he's not. he died in 2013 which is why i had his files in my basement. i would like to say that, you know, i love him dearly and think he's in the 99th percentile of goodness of anybody in the world, and he -- which is why i thought it was so important to look at this, to find out why. and because when we can look at the people we admire the most and see the flaws in them, then it's a lot easier the look at ourselves and see them too. and, you know, a lot of people think the book is about my dad, but the book is told through mid dad, but it's about us -- my dad, but it's about us in society today, people struggling trying to find ways to talk. >> of the people that you talked to who were reflecting on their time, you know, during this, the pastors that you spoke to who were reflecting on that time when you asked them, you know, walk me through why you made

those choices, did you get any sense of regret on, from any of them in regards to their silence? or was it just more about it just was what it was, anyway, what's for dinner? >> it varied. mostly there was regret. there was a good deal of regret, an almost universal agreement that the silence existed and that the silence was wrong and that it had to change. but it changed so slowly. there were people who weren't silent who spoke up, many often, you know, got visits from the klan and called from their -- in the methodist church, you have preachers, and a district superintendent would be somebody over them in the hierarchy key, their boss essentially, and they would get calls from their district superintendent saying

why you've got to keep preaching on these race issues, you know? or the race problem, they called it at the time, the race question. and so that, they really discouraged thatment -- that, and which is the same reason dr. king wrote that letter because all the white clergy with, you know, wrote to him saying don't, you know, you don't need to protest, it's not time, you know? let's talk this out. you don't need to do this. so wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. wait forever, you know? and he knew that justice delayed is justice denied. i lost my train of thought, i'm sorry. >> no. no, no, you answered the question. i just find it, i find it interesting, like, a part of me has always felt like so my father, you know, for the people who don't know, my father was, you know, he was a civil rights journalist, you know, from an era that preceded any type of

black people being on radio on a regular basis. and, you know, he was, you know, you can go all the way back to the '50s, to, you know, the civil war in rhodesia, he was there for the riots, he was embedded with black soldiers in vietnam in some of their platoons, you know, we all know the story of black platoons and the way they were treated overseas. so my father was embedded with a lot of those gentlemen, came home and was -- a which for its time, the national black network was essentially the black, it was a syndicated black radio network that essentially disseminated news and opinions that would specifically address african-americans. this issue was not pertinent to our community, it's not getting covered on nbn. so when my father left nbn, he

went to new york for a little while in the '80s before eventually settling down in birmingham. and so he has seen racism from, through a lot of different prisms, you know? because he saw it domestically and, you know, any civil rights leader you can find, my daddy was three rows back with a tape recorder. he saw it in africa, he saw it over in vietnam, and he came into birmingham with not really as much resentment as i would think a man of his travels should have against the system. but more of, more as a man that was, you know, really solution-minded in trying to figure out ways to just uplift people. like, the problem is out there, but what can i do right now that will just help just one person

or one little thing along. like my father, we were talking about just racism and discussing it, you know, two children in the south with parents who were clearly cognizant of it and clearly wanted something to be different. you know, i often wonder if my if father raised me, he raised me aware of racism, he raised me to be aware of my own power to be able to succeed and grow in spite of it, but he never passed on hatred or resentment. that was never given to me, you know? and that's the one thing that -- i'll tell you this story. so i had a sixth grade classmate, and at the time i lived in west end where i was going to middle school at wj christian in roma -- >> yeah.

>> okay. is so you know that -- >> i'm older than you. yeah, that's quite a trip. >> that's a two hour bus ride. i am on the bus at 6 for 8:00 first bell. and i had a classmate, we were really good friends, and we wanted to do a play date on a saturday. and at the time, it was a much whiter part of town than it is today, but, you know, it was white middle class. there was some black people starting to, you know, trickle in there, but west wedged was still -- end was still back. ing we lived in statistically the most violent zip code in the city. so my white classmate's daddy is not driving all the way to west end, and my my daddy, just knowing what i know now, just to be over there and i don't want to get pulled over. well, i'm not driving you there.

so my father and this man's father, they both get on the phone, and they have a conversation about where to meet. and it was, and it's mind-blowing now to have, to each grasp that this was a regular -- even grasp that this was a regular conversation. yeah, i don't trust your neighborhood. i don't trust your neighborhood. but we both want our kids to hang out and not do racism when they're older, right? okay. well, we met at rogers army/navy store on first avenue north, and that was the halfway point that they agreed upon. and so every time i wanted to hang out with one of my buddies who was white and lived in row buck, i got passed off like it was a kidnapping deal. show me the kid, show me the money. [laughter] walk to the car. it's interesting though, and my point in bringing all of that up is that it's interesting in how

to have parents that are in that fight and you're completely aware of that fight, but to carry it one way within yourself but to still try to instill some level of morality in your children. because that's what it sounds like with your father. it sounds like it was more of a do as i say, not as i do type relationship. >> well, you know, but the thing about it is with him he was doing those things, he was -- and, again, this is what was so hard for me. he was integrating scout groups and making sure that the black preachers in the church were involved with his you are which. , and he was -- church, and he was doing things throughout the years it was happening. but then in the sermons themselves, and we can debate what's more important. whether it's more important to stand up and speak in church or whether it's important to go do physical things.

but the sheer silence of it was just so deafening to me. when were you in grammar school -- >> that was 1988. >> okay. significantly -- you know, to me the big difference, it's hard for people to understand, maybe it's not hard for people to understand because we like to think sometimes this only happens in the south, this only happens in alabama, and we know now that that's not true. but like i said earlier, you know, i was in an integrated school from 19, you know, second grade through high school. when i graduated high school, banks high school, like i said, it was 50% white, 50% black. and it was a great experience. and it helped inform me. the next year, of course, it went to 51% black and then in five years it was all black. >> and then they closed it down. >> then they closed it down.

[laughter] and it's funny and it's just horrible. and what we have lost since we resegregated, abby and large recession -- alabama by and large, resegregated the school system. because if people, i went when it was a regular school, you probably went when it was a magnet school. >> yeah, a magnet school. >> the smartest kids in town came, but anyway -- >> here's what i find interesting about you. and so i did morning radio, agains, this is just a little nonsensical back story for the people watching. so i did morning radio, and the thing that you did in birmingham for the 12, 13 years that i was on the air, the birmingham news

became the place to find the one or two local stories and to always find what people in the city were mad about. i started in '01. this was before social media is what it is today. like, the internet in those days was where you went to print directions and find someone to date. it was their basic -- like, youtube wasn't even a thing yet at that time. your columns were always about the right thing and holding people accountable. that was just -- like, we would just read the column, and i'd be like, okay, we're going to talk about that today on the show. that's a good topic. we could ride this topic for three hours, but we only have twenty minutes. as you in your journey of trying to hold people accountable,

because i don't think that this is something that strictly to you exploring this issue of white silence, the issue of people who don't do the right thing and why don't they do the right thing and what motivates you to do wrong, where does your family sit? >> they're very supportive. in a crazy way, brothers, sisters, daughters, cousins, they all appreciate the fact that, you know, we're talking about this. but i think the accountability thing, the most difficult part for me in writing this book where i hold the person i'm, you know, i think is the most, you know, best person i've ever known accountable. it requires me, and it required me to heavily look at myself and look at the moments when i didn't say the things that i

needed to say or, you know, and i, you know, writing an opinion column you write, you know -- you've read me enough to know that i can be right and i can be wrong. and, you know, i can live with the times i've been wrong because if you write opinion, sometimes you're going to be wrong. but i think in those times, you know, of course there have been times where i didn't have the courage to say the things that needed to be said, and those are the things that really bother me now. and it was these little things, you know? there's a story in the book about when my future wife met my sister, and my sister made some comment if about my brother and about how he was going to stop smoking because, you know, all those gay men in new york -- this was in the '80s.

she said, oh, to my wife -- to my girlfriend, oh, did john not tell you that murray's gay? and my wife said, oh, of course. which was completely untrue because i had never mentioned that in my life. not because i'd really thought i wanted to keep it secret which was, again, like '83, '84, '85, but because i always found a reason to not talk about it. there was always a good reason to just not even think about it because i didn't cross all the streams x. that just ate me up over the course of time because it felt like i was being disloyal. it felt like i was being traitorous to my brother by not, you know, having the courage or whatever it was to just, you know, say, hey, this is my brother, he's gay. whatever. and people say, well, why do you

beat yourself up about that? because with i felt i was traitorous about it. and i think those things eat us up. if you're a person of principle or conscience and you don't stand up, you know the moments that they are. they don't have to be about great, large issues, but they're important to us. >> well, if it's, if you're a person of morals, then -- and you're not speaking out, then it has to be -- has to eat at you one way or another. otherwise i'm not sure if you're human. i want to open up to questions. we're taking questions in the q and a tab if you want to join in. there's two. this fest one -- first one, this is a doozy, but it's also the most important question that i think someone can ask. what do you think is the most important thing white people can to confront the histories of racism within their own

families? >> well, i think that -- >> we're talking about how do you rehab the whole family tree, john, come on. >> you can't, you know, the best question is to start because, you know, i think back, i think back to this, and, you know, there's a fear of opening up a box of old letters sometimes if you're, you know, a white person in the south, particularly you're reading old letters from your grandfather, your great grandfather or great, great grandfather before that you find out owned slaves and did this. i mean, you know, we want to believe that we are different and better and that we weren't a part of the problem that helped create and maintain slavery and jim crow and everything else. but you have to open that box, and you have to look in order to find it. i was amazed because i was, i was scared to death as i was doing this, honestly. i was scared to death because i love my family more than anything, and i love my extended family, you know, as well. and when i talk about a grandfather with, you know, they

have stake in that game too. i have been so amazed because, you know, we went through these letters which we got from extended family, we went through documents, through sermons and found these things and ended up writing a very, very uncomfortable piece that looked at it. and the response from all of the family has been overwhelmingly good. so i think that being able to have a conversation, being able to see the good in somebody while still recognizing the failings is the key. >> okay. we're in a time now where people are just going to believe what they want to believe, and if you're a white person, you're trying to have this logical discussion, hey, this is happening to this group of people, we need to say something about it or we at least need to acknowledge that this is

happening. to me -- [inaudible] really said something, i think it works the same about progress. progress only happens when everybody agrees on the truth or agrees on the premise. if everyone agrees on the premise, i think that progress in a way has to work like that as well. is there ever a point where -- and i'm not trying to play into the white people -- [inaudible] but there are a lot of, january 6th showed us that there are a lot of people entrenched in what they are going to believe and what their truth is going to be going forward. and if you are a member of that family, is there any getting through to that type of person, or do you just focus on the generations that are coming after? like, if you can't say your granddad, is it about talking to your cousins, to the grandchildren, or is it just setting an example and hoping that eventually, you know, granddad comes onboard at some

point? >> yeah. and these times are as difficult as any as i've ever seen, so it's very difficult. i may not have an answer for that, but i can have a philosophy for that. it's a philosophy about, that really is formed through my writing that has seeped into my life, and i think it's one you share as well. because we can be very passionate about those thing, but we also believe it's really important to bring some kind of humor or humanity. you know, if you can talk about somebody, something in a really important issue and make them half at the same time, they can disagree with you, but they can see your humanity. to we've gotten to this point right now where everybody is so this way or that way that they don't see the humanity in each other at all. so as a strategic point of view, i would say i'm going to tell you what i really think, but then i'm going to try to make you smile about something i said, or i'm going to try to

entertain you in some way along the way is that at least you won't cut me off entirely and go away. i think that that's my philosophy about it. >> so there's a couple more questions in the q&a, but i'm going to dovetail off of what you were saying. you kind of answered the front half of it just in terms of, you know, there's people that are going to just say it's a liberal fad and systemic racism isn't real. the back half of the question is interesting, do you engage in conversations with these people or avoid them knowing that you are not going to change anyone's mind in my philosophy has always been if you can at least leave the conversation with more information and with that information you still choose to feel that way, then i've done the most i could at that point. so, you know, if you know that you're fighting a losing battle, do you still engage, john? >> not always. i've always had the philosophy that i would talk to anybody,

and i think that that's an important philosophy. it's much more difficult now. and it goes back to that question where, i mean, we were talking about it earlier when i had lost my train of thought when we were talking about the elementary schools. but i think the importance of -- i mean, i think that a lot of, here's the deal, and i was going to ask you this question. i've lived in the south since, i mean, since 1953 when i was born, and i've never seen racism as strident and as on the surface as it is today. and i wonder if you feel that as well. and so it feels a lot to me today in some ways, despite a lot of progress over the last couple years in some ways, progress, regress, progress, regress, it seemed a lot like the '60s. but to answer the question, yeah, it's important to engage, but it's very difficult, and you have to choose where you engage, and i don't tend to engage on

social media. i will always engage in person. >> yeah. social media is just -- you're asking for it. i don't know if you notice, my daily show -- my twitter field, i will retweet segments that i do from the daily show, but i'm not just posting regular political stuff. if you go out there right now, i'm talking about food and child remote learning because i have a 4-year-old who learned how to unmute himself on zoom and make fart noises and disrupt the class. [laughter] i know, to what elaine is talking about, i'll tell you a story, and these are the type of people they're up against. .. before holiday you sit in

jail it's supposed to be until monday but for whatever reason that particular county had a friday judge and so the u.s. marshals come in and transport everybody from the county jail down to the courthouse and on the ride to the bail hearing, 20 minutes from the drive to downtown tallahassee i got called the n-word probably 30 times on this van by the dude driving. he's saying it to everybody but he is zeroed in on me.

i don't know what to do. i'm petrified. the thing he kept saying to me is go in there and don't say a word, shut your mouth. but the n-word and wherever the phrase verbatim. i go in and should we let you out until the trial or no. this man instructed me to say nothing and i just ago i'm going to say something. i spoke up and on pretrial i was released and you have to go back and the same man that drove the man called me the n-word for another 30 minutes and that was

1998. fast forward six months and thankfully i was given an opportunity to go back to school and get my degree but not even six months after that, i am working at golden corral as a server and there's a table of law enforcement officers and he's one of the people. you don't forget the face. i remember the suspenders and the eyebrows. to this day i could draw this man and look me in the eyes as i'm serving completely polite, kind, typically 30% which

infuriated me even more which either means you are a liar or you don't remember. someone like that i don't know if you can sit him down and show a couple episodes of john oliver and he would change his perspective but that's kind of what they are talking about and i want to make sure we get to all of the questions at the top of the hour. where do you see hope in the race question? >> i have problems with that terminology because it isn't a question. i think that last year as measurable as everybody thinks 2020 was, there was a lot of

hope generated and may be some people here won't know but in the suburb of birmingham alabama it's a small thing in the grand scheme of things but to see thousand white people kneeling at the elementary school lawn is pretty stunning in alabama. it honored george floyd so there was a time it may have been a brief moment in time but to see how many people began to notice black people are treated differently by law enforcement than white people is a remarkable achievement that

people across alabama are talking in wonderful terms to be about writing of race and lgbt q issues is remarkable. there are a lot that won't. we know that, but the number of people that are willing to simply stand up and say this is what i believe because that is all we are talking about. i'm not asking you to yell or shout or protest but use whatever voice you have and whatever personality with whatever makes you comfortable up to be able to say this is what i believe and this is what we should do. that is helpful. >> if you are at least an inch

further along. there is a lot more people acknowledging it and i want to get to these last two questions. what surprised you the most in the process of writing this book? >> i guess you've answered it a little bit. >> there's a lot that surprised me. it's fairly complicated. because i went into it with this illusion that we were somehow different because like i said i have preachers in my family all the way back to the 1750s it

was never something that we had been taught. but it's how absent the words of justice were in the churches themselves, not just my father's, but 90% of the white churches in alabama. it just didn't happen and we wonder why that persists. but still the fact that we went to school 15 years apart and i went during this golden age like the one generation in alabama that went entirely through

integrated schools and almost everybody else i know really didn't. there might be kids of one race or another. especially when the city versus county started getting one-sided in terms of racial majority. >> that is a huge loss because the one thing we had to do is get to know each other and in your formative years that is so extremely important. that whole quality disappears and i don't know how to bring that back because there is such an effort to keep it that way whether it is through property values or rezoning or the city limits there's a thousand different ways that we do it.

>> that goes to the next question. individual actions are important but do you think there is a limit to how much we can push back against racism without change at the policy and leadership level? >> when you have voter suppression and active movement to re- segregate or take funding and put them into private schools i think all those things are detrimental and they cause injustice so that is a problem.

>> i think that there is only so much you can do, but in conjunction with policy change for lack of a better term they flipped the state blue there's a lot of voter suppression getting put on the ballot now in a lot of states where the elections were lost but you still have people that are going to result in every district and a gerrymander to the point where people can't, where your vote doesn't have the power that it needs to have.

maybe then we have opportunities to influence policy. >> you have to have people that are organizing. there were three constitutions during the reconstruction when they started getting power. every time they had political power, the state would rewrite the constitution to change it. one was on the notion that we

have to instill white supremacy in the law. we have to put it in the law so that happens. jim crow happened which is exactly voter suppression. every step of the way is a victory followed by a orchestrated political retreat because it used to be democrats, now it's republicans. we swapped parties and politics. it makes politics seem like the most important thing that essentially what it's done all along regardless of party is that white people didn't want to give up power to black people they feared would be able to get everything. and so this is a long historical trend of this happening none of

which would have been allowed to have enough people of conscience existed. those two things work together. there has to be political power and voice or it doesn't get done. >> i'm going to combine two questions. do you think the methodist church accepted and learned from the behavior and are they addressing today's issues differently? has the methodist church changed. one of those 1,000 showing up

said she's all the pastors taking this on and is encouraged and thinks your dad would be glad. the question is what vision do you have for your book if any moving the church in birmingham to not just recognized but change their racist undercurrent? has the church changed and do you think your book could help move them in that direction a little bit? >> in the churches i've heard from frankly those are the ones more likely to contact there's a spectrum there's your left-leaning, reconciled open they want people to come feel comfortable but as a whole this

is mostly illustrated in the schism taking place right now which is about the rise in marriage and the church will probably split over that, but the irony is the church leadership bishops and such are using the same language now that the opponents of acceptance are using in the 60s to decry immigration. the bishops are quiet about it because they don't want to lose people in the seats. that sounds like the businesses that choose not to get in

politics to sell products to people on both sides of the political aisle. >> i came to fear that my family was within the business of jesus llc which wasn't what jesus was about. there's so much study about how much people have left the church in recent years and how the number that claim no religion at all is now equal to that of the evangelical christians which is the most powerful political force. so, there's a lot of people leaving the church because they don't see the church acting like they believe so there's a lot of

fear about hypocrisy and people who want their churches to show love and openness to everybody. it claims to be open to everybody but it doesn't always equate to that. >> we will get out of here on this last question you've got like five extra minutes? what did you learn about birmingham that you might not have known while working on this book? i learned doctor king was in jail and if we would have voted

yes on the airport. >> my theory on that is people don't know that birmingham and atlanta were about the same size and i think that atlanta had that slogan of we are the city too busy to hate but birmingham wasn't that busy. i've been writing a lot about birmingham so i don't know that i've learned that much about birmingham, but i've learned about the institutions that how deeply it was ingrained in that opposition to desegregation was more deeply ingrained in the people of birmingham than i would have imagined.

>> that dovetails to the question to close on you're not sure if you learn anything about birmingham but let's talk about the people of birmingham. did you ever understand why your father was braver than in speech? >> i have serious about it, and i think that first and foremost, my dad was a company man. his father what they say methodist preacher and his father was a methodist preacher and he loved the methodist church as much as he loved anything and i think that there's a book of discipline that helps what you're supposed to do and believe and it's ridiculously in my mind ridiculously legalistic set of

rules from somebody that said love your neighbor which seems in this book of legal stuff, but he loved his church and was loyal to it and they basically said this isn't something we are going to talk about right now, so there's an academic i quoted in the book that studied that methodist church and how there was a push to keep politics out of the pulpit. you separate politics from the pulpit. that is just the way you do it and he scoffed because the choice is an inherently political choice. i'm not going to talk about the rights of black people. that is the choice to not address issues of race and it's

obviously political. the same is true today on any one of the issues you can think about so i think it was a company line position. >> i cannot thank you enough for the conversation. what you are doing is bold. you've been writing about a lot of different things, but to do a journey into your self as a whole another level. we've got to support these independent booksellers. there's one last message in the q-and-a from your wife and she's saying once i have the vaccine

ican come over for food. if nothing else, this has earned me a good a southern the meal. >> thank you. i appreciate you doing this. i'm going to turn back over to the folks at harvard. >> thank you so much for this amazing talk tonight and all of you for sharing your evening with us. learn more about the book and on behalf of of the bookstore in massachusetts i want to say have a good night, keep reading and please be well, everyone.

>> you have to learn how to communicate. that means writing great e-mails. to keep everybody informed and also to make my mornings easier because when the boss wakes up in the morning the chief of staff c is an article. >> surprises are never good.

>> good evening and welcome once again to the center for american politics and policy. we are pleased to see so many students, faculty, alumni and other interested people joining us tonight virtually. i'm the visiting professor at and senior fellow at the watson institute. i'm honored to serve this year as the interim director of the center that is a part of the watson institute. the center